He's worked in Nauru, providing much-needed counselling to asylum seekers while they wait to be processed.

The Nauru Regional Processing Centre is an offshore Australian immigration detention facility in use from 2001 to 2008 and from 2012 to 2019, and was set for reuse from September 2021 after a new agreement was signed between the governments of Nauru and Australia.

Mr Cloumassis, who was back in Griffith recently, said the experience was heartbreaking, especially on his second trip in 2019.

"It was just awful," he said. "When I was there in 2013, I was pretty shocked at what I was seeing but there were also people coming in pretty frequently and people getting cases processed - there was a bit of hope and movement.

"I went back in 2019, and just seeing some of the same people still there that had been there for six years and watching them deteriorate. They were totally gone."

He added the conditions meant there was a limit to how effective his work could be, with patients being "retraumatised" upon leaving.

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"It's a really tough position to be in, because the first part of trauma healing is establishing safety, letting them feel comfortable sharing their story with me," Mr Cloumassis said.

"If I make someone feel totally safe and they have to go back out where it can be really damaging - it's not like I can refer them somewhere or send them off to another service."

He explained his own anger at the system that put people there, adding he was especially upset to see what he said was the "ritual dehumanisation" of these people in political speeches and wider discussion.

"We make them so unrelatable that we can't see them," Mr Cloumassis said.

"I think that's what we do in general with indigenous people, LGBTQI, people with disability, all marginalized people - we name them in a particular way, we don't call them people seeking asylum, but we call them asylum seekers."

Kat Vella, a leader of the Griffith chapter of Rural Australians for Refugees and member of the National Committee, said that there was no amount of short-term solutions that would aid the underlying trauma of the situation.

"There's no amount of band-aids that's going to fix it. They're locked up in indefinite detention through no fault of their own," she said.

"The biggest thing that needs to happen is that we just need to get them out of there."

Mr Cloumassis explained the impact that seeing the conditions had on him and the other counsellors who were there.

"To be there more than six weeks is just ... we go there six weeks and it feels like hell but I know I'm going home," Mr Cloumassis said.

"I get to fly back to my house and that's everything the people in detention don't have the luxury of.

"I know that I get to be safe at the end of the six weeks, and I don't have to worry and I get to distance it."

That distancing turned out to be harder than he thought, however, with his time there weighing heavily on him.

"Coming back home, I couldn't really see my family and friends and have a normal life. I'd come back and say 'oh, I'll go party and see my friends' and I found it really hard to do," Mr Cloumassis said.

"There was this guilt, I'd ask 'why do I get this freedom and they don't,' so I'd end up coming home and spending time with my colleagues who were also flying back and having this time off, just because they were the only ones who understood. A lot of my close friends now - we worked together there, but we don't really talk about it."

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While Mr Cloumassis was providing help on the ground in Nauru, Ms Vella explained that Griffith RAR was helping out where they could but were in need of more volunteers.

"We need feet on the ground, we need volunteers to lobby our members and government ... RAR groups are involved in a lot of grassroots work to be able to affect change in this area," she said.

"We write letters, we hold rallies, we hold conferences ... We've all done a bit of training on the VISA application process, we basically volunteer our time to help fill out forms, find the correct paperwork and negotiate that bureaucracy."

There is a limit to what they can do however, and she said the onus is ultimately on the Australian Government to do more for those trying to escape unlivable situations. She highlighted the recent Afghanistan evacuation as an example where Australia needed to do more.

"RAR is calling for the Australian Government to increase the number of humanitarian visas that it's setting aside for Afghanistan, even just to match other countries with similar resources... Canada have committed to 20,000 right off the bat, we're woefully behind. There's been so little progress and it's just gotten worse."

"Now is the time to advocate for asylum seekers, leading up to the election. This is not a partisan issue, it's a humanitarian one. It shouldn't be divided through party lines."

Information on Rural Australians for Refugees is available through their website. The Griffith chapter is currently looking for more volunteers - information on joining is available through their facebook page - RAR Griffith.

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